Global Dispatch
As global sales climb, the reasons people buy records diverge sharply across cultures.
Indranil Ghosh is the Middle East and Africa Editor at Rest of World, based in Abu Dhabi.
When I took my son to Mirza Ghalib Street in Kolkata to find Bollywood soundtracks for his new turntable, I was struck by the economics of our mission. Why trade the convenience of 100 million songs on Spotify for a dusty vinyl record that plays for 45 minutes and then needs to be flipped?
Mirza Ghalib Street, formerly known as Free School Street, has a strip of stores that have been home for old records since the 1940s. Streaming arrived and most of the world stopped buying physical music. These shops kept selling the pressings, for anywhere between $18 and $42.
